Actionable Ways to Multiply Engagement in industrial eLearning

1. Actionable Ways to Multiply Engagement in industrial eLearning Growing industrial companies across the globe are recognizing the indisputable benefits of eLearning towards organizational success. CEOs and HR managers today recognize that human resources form the real asset base of any company. It is their quality and skillset that determines an organization’s success trajectory. Investing in their continuous learning and development enhances their level of knowledge and expertise. It raises the sense of satisfaction employees have with their jobs and this directly translates into their enhanced productivity, adherence to internal and external compliances coupled with a lower turnover rate. eLearning makes achieving all this possible with unprecedented simplicity in an agile, affordable manner. In this article, we shall explore case studies of how industrial businesses have leveraged eLearning to infuse better engagement from investments in e-learning and reap its benefits to the fullest. 5 Ways to Make eLearning Engaging Designing eLearning courses is a vast discipline. There exist a myriad of theories and models one can rely on to design the program content. This choice of the model and methodology is quite a critical one as it directly impacts how effective the learning outcomes are. Check out these five actionable ways in making the most of eLearning for industrial and manufacturing companies. 1. Investing in Scenario-based Learning Scenario-Based eLearning is an eLearning methodology that exposes the learners to real-life situational simulations in the ambit of the course. When information is transmitted in this rather practical setting, learners are empowered to manage what they’ve learned much better in their working memory, and also achieve a higher recall in their long-term memory.

2. Scenario-based learning is well recognized for its benefits in terms of engaging and motivating learners, while also challenging them without overloading their mental capacity. Talking in terms of an example, the United Nations designed their eLearning modules for their globally dispersed workforce by leveraging the power of scenario-based learning with authentic role-play scenarios. The results from this exercise were encouraging and as many as 99% of learners surveyed post the course delivery reported increased confidence and clarity levels. 2. Harnessing the Power of Visuals In today’s information age, individuals are flooded with content everywhere their eyes tend to go. Whether it is the signboards they come across while driving, the messages and emails they’re blasted with or the web of information they come across while surfing the internet. In this scenario, the way the new information is delivered to them plays a key role in impacting their absorption of the information along with influencing its stickiness in their minds. As employers invest in eLearning, it makes a remarkable difference to learning outcomes when the right way of teaching is employed. Statistically speaking, it has been established that as many as 65 percent of individuals are visual learners. Making use of this fact when delivering new knowledge to employees makes a tremendous impact on the outcomes and can improve learning by up to 400 percent. Visuals tend to create stickiness in long-term memory, transmit messages significantly faster to the brain, enhance comprehension while also triggering emotions and the much-desired engagement. Toyota Motors Europe leveraged this very fact and managed to condense their day-long training for onboarding new hires to just one hour with remarkable engagement levels and positive outcomes. Essentially, they managed to achieve this by harnessing the power of visuals and creating an interactive video that illustrated the customer value chain right from the start to the end. This replaced the typical successive slide deck format that was presented to the new hires over the course of the entire day by each business department. 3. Introducing Gamification in Courses Gamification offers an incredible way to infuse fun and engagement in eLearning programs in professional environments. In the corporate world, employees are usually tied up juggling the different aspects of their jobs.

3. Encouraging eLearning in the form of exciting games motivates them to go the extra mile and spend time on learning. It has been observed that companies that invest in gamified learning attain improved participation from employees in their eLearning programs. Talking in terms of a real-world case study, CISCO had invested in a social media-based training program for their employees. This eLearning programming comprised of over 45 courses. This quantum would be overwhelming for the intended beneficiaries. To bridge that, the company introduced game-based levels of certifications. These levels encouraged conversation and healthy competition among the employees. While igniting the necessary motivation, it also painted a distinct picture of steps they were expected to take. Results from this gamification exercise included noticeable engagement along with over 650 Cisco employees completing over 13,000 courses and unlocking their certifications 4. Following a Microlearning Approach Microlearning forms another highly effective mechanism to keep the interest of learners alive throughout the length of the course along with enhancing their ability towards the retention of the new knowledge. Talking in simplistic terms, microlearning refers to a learning method wherein the course is segmented into multiple small and digestible modules. The idea is that each module must be completed by the learner within a period of just a few minutes, as opposed to attempting at picking up larger chunks of information at one go. Statistically speaking, it has been observed that longer training results in participants forgetting almost half of what they’ve learned within just the first hour following the training. In a day, that memory loss touches 70 percent and goes as high as 90 percent after a week, rendering the hours and resources invested in training redundant. Microlearning helps to overcome such outcomes. In fact, the benefits of following the approach are multi fold. Firstly, it makes absorption of the information much easier as at one time, there’s only a smaller quantum to absorb. Secondly, and more importantly, since it aids better absorption of knowledge, the bite-sized approach results in enhanced retention of the knowledge. Thirdly, it also tends to introduce discipline in learning by creating a well-defined learning culture.

4. 5. Making Learning Programs Interactive Introducing interactivity in the program design of eLearning programs is a proven way to enhance the efficacy of learning outcomes. Flat, one-side learning programs make learning quite passive with a limited ability of learners to relate to and retain the information. Introducing thought process interchange makes the learning process active and significantly raises engagement levels. Astra Zeneca reaped the benefits of interactive learning while delivering its 2018 Code of Ethics program focusing on the rather monotonous topic. They basically started out by listening to the feedback of their own people about what had and hadn’t worked. They then leveraged an employee-led focus group to generate feedback throughout. Making use of a combination of multimedia elements, interactivity, and storytelling in their approach, they managed to significantly engage over 90 percent of their workforce – an achievement commendable in a monotonous topic. Wish to leverage the above-described techniques and achieve improved outcomes from your eLearning initiatives? Get in touch with our team at Digicode. Our experienced game development experts make e-learning content interesting and easy to learn with lively gamification and improved interactions, simulations, animations, branching scenarios, and videos. We develop customized LMS and eLearning to implement SOPs (Standard operating procedures), ensure compliance (standards like OSHA, EPA), and adhere to safety best practices in challenging work environments. We have proven project management skills and experience in eLearning development to create LMS solutions and training that fit your needs while being scalable and future-ready.